ANN ALTHOUSE: “Imagine if Anthony Weiner were a Republican. (I know, it’s such a hackneyed visualization, but it’s important here.) The liberal/lefty blogs would be shredding him mercilessly. I’m not saying Weiner’s not getting his hair mussed. But if he were a Republican, the feeding frenzy would be of a different magnitude entirely. ”

Ya think? There would be a media feeding-frenzy, instead of a media ignoring-frenzy slowly morphing into an explaining-away frenzy.

This is just a reminder that the media never gets a new playbook. They just keep rolling out the same moves over and over, with the expectation that most folks won’t pay attention. Remember when President Bill Clinton’s henchman Sandy Berger got caught stealing super-sensitive documents from the National Archives? The Clintonista party line was that Berger was simply ‘sloppy’. That implied that taking without authorization papers dealing with very important national security issues and shoving them into one’s underwear and socks is a goofy little error, like misplacing a pencil or accidently watching an entire episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intent. Just a little whoopsie, you silly right-wingers; nothing to see here.

The mainstream media bought that bullshit jive story, then promptly buried the fact that Sandy Burglar got a slap on the wrist instead of being tried for epsionage. Why did this particular story–with all the ominous implications relating to the 9/11 terrorism attacks–merit so little follow up journalism? Why was the Clintons’ explanation simply accepted as truth? Maybe because most reporters didn’t want to dig too deeply into something that would damage their ideological teammates.

The same process is happening here. Weiner’s twitter account was at first ‘hacked’. Then the Congressman said he was ‘pranked’. Either way, its no big deal. No harm, no foul; move along people, this is a distraction. Most media sites will dutifully buy that officially-sanctioned explanation and move on to something else, like turning Paul Ryan into a craven nightmarish ghoul to scare the bejesus out of the elderly over Medicare reform.

For the lamestreamers, the good virtuous pure of heart Democrats versus the evil depraved scheming Republicans storyline must be preserved at all costs. Donkey-Puncher misdeeds, like Anthony Weiner’s priapic foray into online romance, have to be whitewashed in order to maintain the illusion of lefty virtue and most importantly, Democratic electoral viability. I mean, how else are the Democrats supposed to win elections? The strength of their ideas?

Like this:

Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY 9″) finds himself in a late night online pickle.

This evening a photo surfaced on Congressman Weiner’s yfrog account and in his verified Twitter timeline of a man in his underwear with an erection. The photo was reportedly sent to a woman on Twitter. We’ve protected her name and her account, which was at one time verified to be active but has since been deleted after the photo in question was deleted. Coincidentally, the rest of the photos in the congressman’s alleged yfrog account were also deleted around 11 p.m. eastern.

Is the Congressman packing? I steal from BigGovernment, you decide. (Mild NSFW warning, as it is a dude’s schlong we’re talking about here)

On second thought, I call bullshit. Or, more precisely, a cucumber.

The internet is a freaking horrible place. Chat roulette, The Daily Kos and now Weiner’s wang? Jeebus, whatever happened to the innocent family-friendly intertubes of yesteryear.

Update: This story is looking like it has legs (‘As in three legs? HEEEEEYYYYYYYYYYYYYOOOOOOHHHHHH!!!!), so I guess I’ll be updating the Weiner junk story a little. First up, Dan Collins from the great POWIP would like you to know that he too is having some computer issues.

I’m sure he’ll come back with a new perspective on how to deal with women he disagrees with; a new passion for exhibiting that left-wing tolerance we always hear about, and a new red-blooded bleeding heart that takes greater delight in defending “the workin’ man” (read: BIG UNIONS and their goons). We all wait with bated breath for this fire-breather to return.

What exactly did homeboy say?

I know this is going to sound crazy to some of you, but I guess–I guess–calling Laura Ingraham a ‘right-wing slut’ is a bridge too far, even for MSNBC.

He is an unattractive personality who is unlikely to endure on TV even in the fetid swamp of deranged partisan hatred that is MSNBC.

Agreed, but I think there’s more to it. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again–Ed Schultz is supposed to be the leftist version of Rush Limbaugh. He’s a perfect reductio ad absurdum of what liberals think El Rushbo is: fat, loud, Midwestern, hateful, intellectually slow-footed, abrasive and controversial just for the sake of being controversial.

It’s no secret that the lamestreamers have been trying to concoct a progressive answer to Limbaugh for decades. What I’m guessing is some MSNBC producer heard Schultz’s show, took a look at him and thought he’d work as the lefty Limbaugh. The trouble is that things haven’t worked out real well for the Great White Liberal Dope.

Schultz’s ratings are not awesome either on TV or on radio. He doesn’t win his time slots, so he can’t compete with Limbaugh on the basis of numbers. But Schultz also can’t compete against Limbaugh–or Sean Hannity or Mark Levin, for that matter–on the basis of influence. To cite just one example, the ‘Rush baby’ phenomenon is real. You never hear about folks who had their minds changed by listening to Ed Schultz. He just doesn’t have that kind of charisma.

Because progressivism is such a blinkered ideology, they simply cannot figure out Rush’s formula for success. They grope around trying to reverse-engineer a Limbaugh based on their narrow mental template of a right-wing talk show host, but they can’t ever seem to get it right. Then they get butt-sore when Rush runs circles around them day after day, while their version can’t open his mouth without saying something completely ridiculous.

Also just for gits and shiggles, check out Conservative Hideout Senior Fellow Matt’s take on this MSNBC epic fail. Schultzie apologizes, but Matt ain’t buying it.

Everyone wishes they could turn back the clock sometimes, and it turns out Barack Obama is no different.

He got the date wrong by three years when he signed the guestbook at Westminster Abbey today on his official visit to the UK – despite apparently asking the dean what day it was.

As a tough election looms next year and he faces criticism for his handling of the financial crisis, perhaps Mr Obama wished it was indeed May 24, 2008, when he was still a rising superstar.

I’m gonna cut the Teleprompter Reader-in-Chief some slack. Every January, for the first couple days I find myself writing the date with the last year. Like, ‘January 5, 2010′ instead of ‘2011’. I usually start dating stuff correctly by the end of the first week of January. The thing is, we’ve all made that mistake.

In January.

Dating stuff with the last year.

Not three years ago.

2008. Two Thousand And Eight.

Really, Barry? Really?

[/facepalm]

Fuck, since I ripped the headline format off of Hot Air, I’ll swipe Instapundit’s joke for the finish:

They said if I voted for John McCain, we’d get a confused half-senile Constitution-stomping warmonger for President…and they were right!

I snagged the original link off of The Daley Gator, who pretty rule when it comes to this kind of stuff. Thanks, guys.

I was sorta stumped for today’s Music Monday extravaganza. I was trying to think of a cool modern rap tune to post up, but nothing was really screaming to be thrown onto the blog. Then I remembered hearing a snippet of this the other day and it made up my mind.

From what I’ve read, Debussy started work on this in 1890, but didn’t publish it until 1905. In those intervening years, the composer rejiggered the piece more than a few times. Parts of the composition were changed and titles were swapped out as the years passed.

To me, that says something about the nature of greatness. In movies and in popular imagination genius is defined by the serendipitous moment; think of Dr. House staring off into space as the solution to a medical mystery falls into place. That kind of thing does happen from time to time, but more often the great piece of art, or literature or scientific discovery is the culmination of a massive amount of work. The magnum opus that we see is the final draft of a piece with countless revisions, false starts and trashcan fodder laying behind it.

Debussy could’ve published his first or second attempts at the “Suite Bergamasque”–of which ‘Clair de lune’ is a part–and it probably would’ve sounded great. But it also probably wouldn’t have transcended time and circumstance. It might’ve been just a notable piano composition. That’s no small feat, but it’s not immortality.

If you liked that, try listening to the rest of the “Suite Bergamasque”.

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Like this:

Because I guess he figures he hasn’t pissed off conservatives nearly enough.

The Washington Post did a story on Steve Crowley, the White House gun control czar. Crowley is considered to be an expert on regulation and tort law. His approach to gun control appears to be a regulatory one.

According to the article, Jim and Sarah Brady visited Capital Hill on March 30, the 30th anniversary of the assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan; to push for a ban on “large magazines.”

The couple reportedly were meeting with press secretary, Jay Carney, when, according to Sarah Brady, the President came in. She said the President told her he wanted to talk about gun control and “fill us in that it was very much on his agenda.”

She went on to say Obama told her, “I just want you to know that we are working on it. We have to go through a few processes, but under the radar.”

I guess it’s not so stealthy if the Obamatons are blabbing it to the Washington Compost. What they’re doing isn’t really secretive. I guess you could characterize this gun-contol-by-fiat-move as antithetical to the letter and spirit of the US Constitution, so no big deal or anything.

But really, is this shocking? Obama has spent his presidency making shit up as he’s gone along. To cite just one example, if anybody thinks President Peace Prize is actually going to get Senate approval for his Libyan debacle in accordance with the War Powers Act, I’m sad to report to you that Lindsey Lohan is not in fact drug-free.

So why is Obama signalling a gun control plan now? My guess is that the President is nervous about his lefty base. Discussing gun control ideas with Sarah Brady is a signal–or even better, a social marker–for the lifestyle left. Limiting them, even if it means using extra-constitutional executive orders to do it, is all good and gravy for the gun-grabbers.

Broadly speaking, letting this future strategy leak out to the prog-o-sphere is a way For Obama to tell liberals that he’s with them. That tells me that Obama knows he has to shore up his lefty base.

Does this mean Obama won’t actually try to use executive orders to put limits on guns? Not at all. It does mean that Obama is concerned. That’s pretty cool.

Trestin Meacham of the great Don’t Tread On Us blog has an even greater idea.

As we come closer to hitting the debt ceiling and our debt grows, the government is being forced into new ways of creating revenue. This is creating a new movement in Congress to have the government sale federal lands.
Those who have read my past posts, know that much of my Libertarian ideas stem from the Federal Government’s disproportionate control of the land in my home state of Utah. The BLM and Forest Service have done a poor job managing the lands, and have significantly restricted people from doing things our families have been doing for generations.

Now, with our debt and entitlements growing, the government is being forced to liquidate assets to remain functional.

Seriously, ya’all need to read Trestin’s piece. In fact, you should make Don’t Tread On Us a daily read.

Wanna take a guess just how much land does the federal government own in the United States? Five percent? Ten percent? Try nearly thirty percent. Hell, Washington DC damn near owns the entire Western chunk of the nation.

How much money could be made in them thar hills? I get how conserving natural beauty and being a steward of our resources is important. But does Barack Obama really need to own 50% of Idaho?

So they found a big stash of porn in Osama bin Laden’s compound. I thought the whole point of terrorism was supposed to be religious or something, but apparently the terrorists are like cafeteria Muslims — they don’t subscribe to the whole Islamic tenet of clean living and instead just adhere to the blowing-up-infidels part of the religion.

It seems one of the biggest goals of Islamic terrorists — besides pointless murder and mayhem — is to have absolutely no redeeming qualities whatsoever. We have bleeding heart liberals who automatically side with America’s enemies, but the terrorists are dead set on giving even those people absolutely nothing to hold onto. You can search and search for the terrorists to have any redeeming qualities, and the best you’ll come up with is something like, “Well, one time they only kicked a puppy when they easily could have stomped it to death.”

They’re just pointless, useless enemies — far more one-dimensionally vile than anything you’d find in the most hackneyed fiction. And that’s a big problem for us.

America has been in a slump for a long time. We just can’t get our act together and be the shining city on the hill we used to be, and I think a big part of that is terrorists. Not terrorism; terrorists — in that they are our big enemy right now. The fact is, to achieve great heights, America needs a great villain to overcome, and as long as our big enemy is a bunch of primitive thugs servicing themselves in barren compounds, we’re going to be stuck in a rut.

Like this:

The lovely and talented Pundette expresses an opinion many in the right-o-sphere are thinking.

Ryan looks awfully appealing when compared with Romney, the corporatist candidate, heir-apparent to the nomination, fundraiser extraordinaire, and antithesis of a Tea Party candidate.

Maybe Newt Gingrich’s bizarre, self-destructive attack on Ryan’s ideas wasn’t so misplaced after all? Did he instinctively zero in on his strongest rival?

While we’re fantasizing, imagine the smart, articulate Ryan up against Obama in a debate. One would be armed with ad hominem attacks, distortions, and vague slogans, the other with a keen grasp of the nature of the crises we’re facing, from the details to the big picture.

Here’s a secret the MSM doesn’t want to face: If the debate is about the budget, entitlements or fiscal sanity in general, than Ryan would annihilate Barack Obama in a debate. In the two-plus years of the St. Bambi Admenstruation, the President has demonstrated absolutely no ability to articulate a coherent budget that even sorta addresses the fatal debt spiral America is about to plunge itself into during the next decade. He can talk in sonorous tones about certain things. He does alright when the teleprompter is in good working order and his speechwriters are on their game, but that’s about it.

The lamestream media hacks that run the debates would make sure to stack the deck in their Teen Beat man-crush’s favor of course. But even the chicanery of the liberal press can’t get Obama speak fluently about fiscal policy in an off-the-cuff setting. Barry just can’t be bothered to figure that stuff out. Math is hard after all, and those Titleists won’t knock themselves into water hazards all on their lonesome.

So yeah, Paul Ryan would be a nice guy to have around if Obama could be teased into debating him on equal footing. You know who would do even better than Ryan against Barack Obama?

If we have to “go there” with the race issue, I like what Andrew Breitbart said in his Heritage Foundation speech:

Breitbart . . . wants radio host Herman Cain and Freshman Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) on the 2012 GOP ticket. . . .
“The only way to defeat political correctness and cultural marxism and multiculturalism is to aim straight at its head,” Breitbart said.

The beauty of the Breitbart approach is that liberals see a quote like that and say to themselves, “Give me a break. They wouldn’t actually do that, would they?”

Because it’s too damned simple. It’s like the fullback dive on fourth-and-goal. But the fullback dive is the perfect play, if you have confidence in your team. Forget the razzle-dazzle — just give the ball to the fullback and run it right at ‘em.

There’s no point worrying about the psychological symbolism of a Cain candidacy when you consider the likely alternative. What all the clever GOP pundits like Charles Krauthammer want to do is to re-run the Bob Dole ’96 campaign: Find some bland non-entity, hire a bunch of speechwriters and consultants, and run a boring, predictable campaign that ends in defeat so that, four years later, Republicans nominate somebody named “Bush.”

Here’s an idea: Put Herman Cain in a debate with Barack Obama in the last week of September 2012, pop a bucket of popcorn, then watch the former businessman demolish both liberal economic shibboleths and multi-culti canards while Obama gets pissed off because somebody actually challenged his petulant over-entitled ass.

The next week after that, DVR the ‘Jersey Shore’, crack open another tub of popcorn and tune in as Paul Ryan does his sober accountant analyst act as Joe Biden’s two brain cells attempt to bump into each other in the hopes of forming a sentence.

Lather, rinse, repeat a couple more times until President Lightbringer and his Administration of Pure Fucking Fail is revealed as the stale old pinko joke they really are right on national television for the entire electorate to see.

As RS McCain says, “What, too easy?”

You’re right. It’s not quite difficult enough to beat a sitting president. Let’s make this election waaaaay harder than it has to be.

How’s about a dull technocrat like Mitch Daniels. He’ll be freaking great. He wants a truce on social issues, thus giving Christian conservatives absolutely no reason to get excited and vote in 2012. How does the GOP wins without the religious right showing up to the polls? Oh yeah, that’s it…they don’t.

Well, if you have a hard-on for dull technocrats who have even more politically harmful ideas than Daniels, you’ll love Mitt Romney. He was for ObamaCare in Massachusetts before he was against it in America. That’ll be simple to explain to voters looking for a contrast between Obama and Romney. Wait, did I say ‘simple’? What I meant to say was goddamn near impossible.

Not an arduous enough path? Try nominating the Newt-Man on for size. He’ll only shoot himself in the foot once or twice a week, then run the barrel up his leg while mashing his finger on the trigger just for shits and giggles. If Gingrich is the GOP candidate, Barack Obama’s campaign message will consist entirely of posters, flyers, youtube clips and television ads proclaiming, “Hey, At Least I’m Not That Self-Indulgent Doucherocket”.

I swear to Jeeeebus…the GOP is going to fuck up the free lunch Obama will be serving up to them in 2012. And why? Because they’re scared of taking a risk?

For almost 25 years, the Republicans have done their level best to play it nice and safe. What the hell has it gotten them? Bush the Elder, Bob Dole, Dubya and John McCain are all admirable men. They have served their country in war and peace, shown tough leadership during times of extraordinary peril and are proud patriots. They’re also politicians who were anointed by their party leadership not because they were good candidates, but because it was their turn.

The MSM is dying for the GOP to play to that cheesedick type. That way, they can just run one their tried-n-true “Republicans Are Racist Sexist Homophobe Ghouls” narratives. To pile on to RS McCain’s football metaphor, the defense is dead sure it knows what play the GOP is going to run, so they’re perfectly poised to break it up in the backfield for a twenty yard loss.

The Republicans have to shatter the habits that have made them so lame and beatable. One way to do that is to nominate people that don’t fit the Donkey-Puncher Party’s pre-fit election templates. Paul Ryan’s budget is a way of getting America in the right direction. It acknowledges reality and doesn’t kick the can down the road, but instead tries to deal with the federal debt in an honest way. Herman Cain is not the usual Ivy League peckerwood elitist. He’s been wildly successful in a world far different from the ivory tower theoretical egghead labs that created Barack Obama’s ideology.

The Cain/Ryan team is a winner. Yes, it’s risky. But then again, if the GOP is just going to do what it always does, there’s a huge chance they will fail and deliver Obama another term. That would be fatal to the American republic. The Republicans should not consign the US to certain doom just because it cannot get past its pathetic loser traditions.

Death From Above 1979 was a two-piece rock combo that had a brief flirtation with fame in 2006. Of course, they then sabotaged it all by breaking up for five years. They’ve been making some noise on their current reunion tour, but whether they make a new CD or not is up in the air at this point.

The coolest thing about DFA 1979 is that they took the 2-piece band concept that had been rolling around with combos like White Stripes and Local H in a slightly different direction. In place of a guitarist playing the melody, DFA1979 had a hyperkinetic highly overdriven bass sound going on. Jesse Keeler didn’t go for traditional bass lines, but crunched out low-end riffs instead. Drummer Sebastien Grainger employed a lot of dance beats into his songwriting. The merging of these sorta off-center ideas was a band that played a brand of heavy dance rock that was truly unique.

“Romantic Rights” was a single off of Death From Above 1979’s only album You’re A Woman, I’m A Machine.

If you liked that, check out “Sexy Results“, the best song ever written that referenced an episode of “The Simpsons” (click to about 19:30 for the particular bit in question).

In the post 9/11 age, Westerners have tried to explain why Islam has taken such a violent turn. From full-throated terrorist apologias to more sober hard-eyed analyses, America and her civilizational cousins have examined the reasons for violent jihad. Great debates have been had over the last ten years. September 11th was a wake-up call for many Westerners. While many of us are still asleep, the US conservative movement has at long last decided to examine the deeper motivations and passions that drive Islamic fundamentalism.

While this process of examination has been beneficial, sometimes it is necessary to listen to Muslim dissidents themselves. They will often tell you far more of the story than you’d likely get from other sources. That’s why Raymond Ibrahim’s translation of a Khaled Montaser piece is pretty important.

We Muslims have an inferiority complex and are terribly sensitive to the world, feeling that our Islamic religion needs constant, practically daily, confirmation by way of Europeans and Americans converting to Islam. What rapturous joy takes us when a European or American announces [their conversion to] Islam—proof that we are in a constant state of fear, alarm, and chronic anticipation for Western validation or American confirmation that our religion is “okay.” We are hostages of this anticipation, as if our victory hinges on it—forgetting that true victory is for us to create or to accomplish something, such as those [civilizations] that these converts to our faith abandon.

And we pound our drums and blow our horns [in triumph] and drag the convert to our backwardness, so that he may stand with us at the back of the world’s line of laziness, [in the Muslim world] wherein no new scientific inventions have appeared in the last 500 years. Sometimes those who convert relocate to our countries—only to get on a small boat and escape on the high seas back to their own countries.

There’s a lot of truth to digest there.

First, it is important to note that there are Muslim scientists and thinkers doing important work. They study and invent and innovate not in Damascus, Jakarta or Tehran but in London, Frankfurt and Chicago. This indicates that there is no genetic or racial basis for the lack of ‘Islamic inventions’. It is the culture of Muslim-majority nations that is stifling.

The West in general, and America in particular, is the only place where a Muslim can safely use his mind to create something other than yet another jihadist ideology or violent terrorist organization. If you’re a clever Muslim who wants to invent something in the United States, chances are that the fast-thinking Farouk will be rewarded for his hard work and labor should his innovation actually perform. The same cannot be said for the vast swath of kleptocracies that riddle the Middle East. The man with a plan in the Islamic sphere will most likely see his good idea stolen by the thieves that man the important government posts or ignored by religious fundamentalists. There’s really no reason for the intelligent person to even bother trying, so he doesn’t.

That five hundred year failure rate has to gall many hard-core Muslims. While the mongrelized infidels in America and Europe have dominated the world with rapidly changing technology, vibrant expansionist pop culture and wild commercial success, Muslims live off the fruits of Western intellectualism but cannot hope to emulate it in their own homelands. According to the Koran, it is Muslims that have the truth–and more importantly, God–on their side. For Islamic supremacists, having God in their corner should’ve meant that they would be blessed with inventions and innovations. They should’ve been the winners of progress, not the debauched kaffir West.

Consider another irony. Even many of the Islamic sphere’s bad ideas come from us. The Ba’ath party that dominated Iraq and continues to oppress Syria is merely an Arab facelift for a German socialism. Bashar al-Assad is basically Erich Honeker with a much funnier name and a slightly more brutal secret police organization.

More to the point of Montaser’s article, Islam’s constant seeking of Western validation–specifically through the conversion of Westerners to Islam–speaks to the inherent weakness of the faith. We in the West sometimes think that Muslim expansionism is a sign that the Western world or that Judeo-Christian values are in decline. But what does it say about Islam when the only way they can feel good about themselves is if some Eurotrash brainfart or American half-wit starts praying to Mecca five times a day?

When you always have to have the approval of others, you are doomed. The same is likely true for the supremacist version of Islam. While non-Muslims cannot do much to make that collapse happen, we can encourage those voices who criticize the backwardness of modern Islam.

I snagged the link from Kathy Shaidle’s Five Feet Of Fury, who directed me to Jihad Watch, which got me to Raymond Inrahim’s post. Thanks to all.

To paraphrase Ronald Reagan, the LSU students have just signed legislation making liberal hippie cockholsters illegal. The waterballoons start at about 1:00 minute.

Benjamin Haas, communication studies graduate student, will burn an American flag tomorrow (Wednesday) at noon on the Parade Ground as part of a peaceful protest, according to Cody Wells, Student Government president.

Wells said Haas is exercising his First Amendment right to burn the flag. The burning comes nearly a week after Isaac Eslava was taken into custody after cutting down and burning the American flag flying over the War Memorial and stealing the University flag.

Wells said Haas went through University procedure to host tomorrow’s protest, and he also went through the procedure to organize a “peaceful assembly in response to recent flag burnings.”

“We’re going to respect his First Amendment right to burn our American flag,” Wells said.

He added he and others will then “exercise our own First Amendment rights” by holding their own ceremony.

See, he’s totally not an overeducated underpatriotic hipster dickbag walking cliché. I didn’t realize combovers were back in fashion either. This guy really is cutting edge.

I already know what the liberal reaction will be to this dust-up in a teacup.

‘LSU IS A BUNCH OF FASCISTS! DON’T YOU QUESTION HAAS’ PATRIOTISM! HALIBURTON-NAZIS-KOCHBROTHERS-PATRIOTACT-JINGOISM-WAHWAHWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!1111111eleventy!!!!!!’

I’ll listen campus progressives complaints about curtailing free speech when they stop throwing spittle-flecked temper tantrums every time David Horowitz or some other right wing hate figure shows up to speak. Hell, Ann Coulter can’t even walk through a college quad without catching a bushel of death threats. When the left starts policing it’s side, instead of winking at their little Stalinists unfree speech enforcers, then I’ll worry about some flag-burners pwecious wittle civil liberties.

In the modern era, Republican presidents with monosyllabic names have been quite inferior to those with two-syllable names. And it is the main reason why John McCain got whupped. Think I’m crazy? Let’s give it a closer look.

George – Dubya was good at some things, stunk at some other things. I think we can agree that he was a mixed bag.

George the Elder – Remember his “Golly!” moment at the check-out line? ‘Nuff said.

Ronald – Shut up about amnesty and the Beirut Marine barracks getting blown up. In every other way the man was like pure kickass rolled in a tortilla of awesome.

Gerald – Two syllables, but yet he mostly sucked. ‘Cuz he was just filling in for Dick.

Richard – Was really monosyllable “Dick”. And he pretty much sucked. Thanks for opening China, you [bleep].

This is a pretty neat piece of fun. Check out his summary of the Donkey-Puncher presidents to see the pay-off.

Even though this is meant for humor, I think Inn’s examination is pretty spot on. In the 20th century, it only breaks down with Herbert Hoover (Quite Bad), Warren Harding (Bad), Ike (Good) and Calvin Coolidge (Very Good).

Like this:

That’s how Andrew McCarthy characterizes the Obama administration’s policy towards dealing with terrorism and terrorists. Here’s more from his piece.

The Lawyer Left is the core of the president’s base. From its legions, Obama recruited his attorney general, the top lawyer in his State Department, and many of his administration’s most influential voices. Its signal achievement has been to make a legal and political hash of terrorists’ detention and interrogation. It has become far easier and cleaner to kill the enemy than to capture and squeeze him for intelligence purposes.

This is an extraordinarily problematic situation. As I’ve conceded before, my principal concern about candidate Barack Obama was that, in his maddening solicitude toward anti-American Islamists, he would abandon the fight against Islamist terrorists. I’ve been delighted to be proved wrong about that. Considering where I feared he’d come out, it seems downright ungracious to complain that we are killing when we ought to be grilling.

Nevertheless, given that our concern here is national security rather than good manners, we have to complain — at least about the policy, if not to its application in bin Laden’s case.

…President Obama is enjoying counterterrorism success by slipstreaming behind Bush-era policies and exploiting the afterclap of the CIA’s Bush-era interrogation program. But the well is running dry. Unless we replenish it with new interrogation intelligence, the days when we can identify previously unknown terrorists and thwart their plans are numbered. You can’t rely on killing every terrorist when you don’t know every terrorist.

Read the rest.

In the essay, McCarthy is quick to add that he believes Osama bin Laden had to die. He argues–rightly, I think–that the potential intel we lost by killing OBL was outweighed by the sheer necessity of his death. Bin Laden had to go, no matter what he might’ve been compelled to tell us during a friendly chat with a few of our intel officers at Guantanamo Bay.

McCarthy’s larger point…that we’re killing potential sources of valuable intel because the Administration doesn’t want to have use enhanced interrogation techniques…is particularly important. Obama’s propensity to “kinetically de-live” (Hat-tip, Manhattan Infidel) terrorists rather than question them is ultimately counter-productive. By all means turn the big bad guys, the living symbols of fundamentalist jihad, into corpses. That’s better than good in my book. However, there has to be a limit to how many terrorists you can afford to simply rub out.

For instance it probably would’ve been easier to kill Khalid Sheik Mohammad, the number 3 guy in al-Qaeda and the chief planner behind the 9/11 attacks, rather than capture him alive. No transporting a live human who could give you trouble en route, no potential rescue attempts by his buddies and no messy issues involving the methods used to pry intel out of his brain. KSM catching a JDAM-induced curb stomp would’ve been Kool and the Gang for most of the American public. It would’ve also taken away the need to question KSM. Naturally, you can’t put a pile of soon-to-be fertilizer into a stress position and expect it to talk.

But killing Khalid Sheik Mohammad would’ve also denied the Americans a large chunk of data. Most importantly, KSM was the man who gave up the name of the Osama courier. That vital piece of intel eventually led SEAL Team 6 to kill Osama bin Laden. Taking KSM alive was an important component in the nation’s long-term security plans.

The thing is, capturing high-value targets sorta implies that we’ll interrogate them. Interrogating them means making tough choices about what methods of questioning are used on what detainees. All the labyrinthine decisions and ethical dilemnas that George Bush faced have not gone away simply because the current president has decided to avoid painful quandries unless he absolutely cannot dodge them.

Complexity. Hard choices. Nuance. Ambiguity. All things that Team Obama assured us the President could handle and handle much better than Dubya. Has St. Barry actually figured these things out, or has he just decided to yet again vote ‘present’? Sadly, signs point to the latter.

I’m a few days late for the unofficial Star Wars celebration day. May 4th…as in ‘May the Fourth Be With You’ [rimshot/]…has come and gone, but we can still take a gander at some totally rad Star Wars propaganda posters.

They’re all good, but I dig the ‘He Can’t Do It Alone’ pic. The old skool Vader does it for me.

One more thing that rules–No stupid bullshit from the prequels. No little kid Anakin, no stupid Qui-Gonn Jinn, no Jar-Jar. Thank freaking God.

Click over to the link to see the rest of them. Really cool stuff. Enjoy, ya’all.

I know White Denim is getting too mainstream for some of the woodshop glasses-wearing muso nerds out there, but I think they’re still cool. Honestly, this video is pretty meh, but the song itself is rad.

White Denim is from the hipster Mecca better known as Austin, Texas. When I first heard about them and their pedigree, I wanted to hate the band. Then I heard the music and I was hooked despite my best attempts at dismissing them out of hand.

If you liked that tune, check out what happens when White Denim straps on the acoustic guitars and chills out by the camp fire.